Houses that change the world

Transcription

1 Houses that change the world Towards a Re-Incarnation of Church Wolfgang Simson, Madras, December 1998 D R A F T C O P Y Not for sale This is a pre-publication version of this book. If you are interested in a translation into a specific language, or publication rights for a country, please contact us at: FAX (+49) FAX in USA: (+1) - (312) TEL (+49) Mail: Wolfgang Simson, PF 212, CH-8212 Neuhausen 2, Switzerland

2 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 2 Content page Comments 3 A vision too good to be true? 6 Fifteen Theses towards a Re-Incarnation of Church 7 Why and for whom this book was written The Reinvention Of Church Bridging the church gap Housechurches in History Rediscovery through the 40 valley of the Dark Ages 3. The nature of housechurches What they are, what they 62 do, and how they function 4. The Five-Fold Ministry God s resources and structure 76 For multiplying housechurches 5. Housechurch or cellchurch? Thirteen reasons why house- 94 churches housechurches are the natural solution 6. Developing a persecution- Blessed are you when you are 109 proof structure persecuted : how to develop a persecution proof spirit and thrive under pressure 7. No progress without change The art of Transitioning, or: 122 How to avoid to do the New in the power of the Old 8. All change is practical The last step you want to 130 take determines your next step 9. QSQ Values and content are first, 144 methods and plans second, growth and numbers come last: how to think Quality-Structure-Quantity 10. Fathering the next Generation Who will do all the work? Models of Church Multiplication How to plant churches 175 Without manufacturing them 12. Building national Momentum How to develop a critical mass, 182 and leave the outcome to God APPENDIX Suggested Materials 191 About the author 192 About Dawn International Network 193 Index 194

3 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 3 Comments: A far more significant book than I expected. It challenges many sacred cows, demonstrates remarkable biblical, theological and strategic insight. The whole church needs to hear what Wolfgang Simson has to say in this seminal work. Prof. Kenneth B. Mulholland, Dean, Colombia Biblical Seminary A very important emphasis in ecclesiology, which I believe the Lord is impressing on His church in these days. A remarkable job. Ernie Addicot, Interdev, UK I just kept finding myself saying: That s what I believe! Daniel A. Brown, Sen. Pastor, The Coastlands Aptos Foursquare Church, USA I read the first pages of the book and my heart was beating so fast I think I am getting tachycardia. Dr. Dan Trotter, Editor New Reformation Review and Ass. Prof. of Business Administration, Hartsville, USA This is pure Gold! Robert Fitts, Author of The Church in The House, Hawaii A monumental and marvelous piece of work! It is going to be a very important contribution to the present situation faced by the church. Ralph Neighbour, Author of Where do we go from Here Really superb, excellent stuff! This book has a phenomenal amount of truth, and has a lot to contribute into the debate concerning the shapes and models of church for the future. Roger Ellis, Revelation Church, Chichester/UK I have actually read this book from cover to cover, something which I haven t done with any Christian book in years except Philipp Yanceys What s so amazing about Grace. Chris Schneider, Servants/Onesimus, Philippines Great Book! I was a Pastor in the Reformed Church in Switzerland for six years, and can agree with a lot from my own experience. Matthias Schuurmann, Theol. Teacher, Windhoek, Naimibia An excellent book, which goes to the heart of the structure problem in our perception of the church. I completely agree with the analysis and much appreciate the book and it s message. Patrick Johnstone, WEC, London How this book echoes in my heart! Tony Black, Reconciliation International, Scotland Very challenging and extremely important. Kai S. Scheunemann, Reformer in Wiesbaden, Germany

4 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 4 Hits on a very significant topic sure to be a vital element in the explosion of the church around the world. Tremendous amount of great material. The vision and scholarship of this book is surely the wave of the future. This book is on the cutting edge of things to come. There is no question that if we are going to fill the earth with the knodledge of the glory of the Lord with millions of new congregations, we will have to return to the New Testament model presented here. James Montgomery, Founder and President, Dawn Ministries, Colorado Springs, USA The Carmeliters have alway known that a group of more than 20 people cannot have real fellowship. You can avoid each other too easily. If church wants to survive, she needs new and effective Forms. That is what housechurches can provide. Jakobus Richter, Mühlrad, Germany MOST interesting and very revolutionary VERY worth reading. Magde S. Bowes, Editor, The Believer, Vancouver, Canada A unique study, carefully studiying NewTestament examples of churchplanting. Wes Wilson, Vice President, Every Home for Christ, Colorado Springs, USA Inspiring! Forced me to rethink some of my convictions. Michael Strub, Mission Leader, Asia Ground-breaking! So new and fresh, that, to the average reader, it will be quite revolutionary. Clive W. Clayton, Brussels, Belgian Evangelical Mission I was thoroughly gripped by this book, so much that I read it right through. Nic Harding, Senior Church leader, Liverpool, UK A very good and highly relevant book, excellent work. Written in a challenging style and spirit, but stil remains balanced and mature. Berthold Becker, Intercessors for Germany Very interesting reading. God is doing something incredibly significant across the world - that swhy in a way, this book comes as no big surprise Andrew Parham, Leadership Team, Ichthus Fellowship, London/UK Enjoyed this book heartily. Forthright and passionate, but does not out down those comin rom a different position. The analysis between the difference between cell church and house church is the best that I have read. Dr. Robert Banks, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, USA Housechurches seem to be tailormade for todays Generation-X. Ulrich Salvisberg, Former Pastor and Coordinator, Explo 97

5 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 5 Prophetically shocking! An incredible amount of work, hitting on many of the crucial issues facing the Church today. A very challenging and stimulating book. Robert Mountford, City Vision,UK Totally agree with the asessment of the Constantine Church. What also strikes me as absolutely right is the issue of the church having to become more persecution proof. This is the absolute opposite of the state church that gives you secuity as long as you are obedient. Björn Larsson, Priest, Church of Sweden Wow! This book challenges our understanding of church and how it s done. I strongly recommend this book to every pastor and church leader. Eddie Smith, Coordinator, US-Prayer Track, AD2000 & Beyond Movement This is one of the most significant books that I have seen for a long time. Peter Brierly, Christian Research, UK This book is prophetic and may be too early for many people. It is a must for those involved in leadership, and highly recommended for those involved in frontier missions. Maarten Bruynes, Leader of FMC, YWAM Holland I am very sure this book will be of great service to the expansion of God s kingdom. David Lim, Manila, To be honest, I have given up on all those new church fads and Christian waves. But this thing about housechurches excites me deep down. I have hoped for this type of church to become a reality all my Christian life. I can t believe it might come true! I am so excited I could cry. Computer Programmer, Switzerland This might actually work! Pharmacist, Switzerland Something simple, yet dynamic. That is what I have always hoped the church to be. Medical Doctor, Switzerland I have been 40 years in ministry. Now, after finding out about housechurches, I feel I have climbed the ladder, only to realize that it has been leaning against the wrong wall. Mission leader, India This is exactly the type of church I have seen in action, and what the Holy Spirit has reveiled to us, bevore the missionaries came. Woman, Mongolia Philippines I was blessed, blessed, edified and excited, as I read this book. It truly grasps the radical essence of New Testament Christianity. Pastor Barry Kirk, Tilehurst Free Church (Baptist), Reading/UK

6 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 6 A vision too good to be true? Being brought up in Christian Germany with churches everywhere, I have always felt that there must be something exciting about the Church which Jesus started and about which I read in the New Testament - but somehow I have yet to discover what it is. I dreamed - together with many friends and colleagues, of a church, that is as simple as One-Two-Three, yet is dynamic; an explosive thing, able to turn the world and a neighborhood upside down. The church as a supernatural invention; endowed with God s gift of immortality; the way to disciple each other, and to transfer the life of Jesus to each other. An experience of grace and grapes, love and laughter, joy and jellybeans, forgiveness and fun, power and - yes, why not, paper. A church, which does not need much finances, rhetoric, control and manipulation, which can do without powerful and charismatic heroes, which is non-religious at heart, which can thrill people to the core, make them loose their head for joy, and simply teach us The Way to live. The church which not only has a message, but is the message; which spreads like an unstoppable virus, infects whatever it touches, and ultimately covers the Earth with the glory and knowledge of God. It s power stems from it s inventor, who has equipped it with the most genius spiritual genetical code - a sort of heavenly DNA, which allows it to transfer and reproduce Kingdom values from Heaven to Earth, and transform not only water into wine, but atheists into fascinated apostles, policewomen into prophetesses, terrorists into teachers, plumbers into pastors, and dignified village elders into beaming evangelists in the process. It is like a spiritual family - organic, not organized, relational, not formal; it has a persecution-proof structure, matures under tears, multiplies under pressure, grows under the carpet, flourishes in the desert, sees in the dark, and thrives on chaos. A church that can multiply like two fish and five breads in the Hands of Jesus, were the fathers turn their hearts to the sons and the sons their hearts to the fathers, were it s people are it s resources, and which has only one name to brag about, the Lamb of God.

7 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 7 God is changing the Church, and that, in turn, will change the world. Millions of Christians around the world are aware of an imminent reformation of global proportions. They say, in effect: Church as we know it is preventing Church as God wants it. A growing number of them are surprisingly hearing God say the very same things. There is a collective new awareness of age-old revelations, a corporate spiritual echo. In the following 15 Theses I will summarize a part of this, and I am convinced that it reflects a part of what the Spirit of God is saying to the Church today. For some, it might be the proverbial fist-sized cloud on Elijah s sky. Others already feel the pouring rain. Fifteen Theses towards a Re- Incarnation of Church 1. Church is a Way of Life, not a series of religious meetings. Before they where called Christians, followers of Christ have been called The Way. One of the reasons was, that they have literally found the way to live. The nature of Church is not reflected in a constant series of religious meetings lead by professional clergy in holy rooms specially reserved to experience Jesus, but in the prophetic way followers of Christ live their everyday life in spiritual extended families as a vivid answer to the questions society faces, at the place where it counts most: in their homes. 2. Time to change the system In aligning itself to the religious patterns of the day, the historic Orthodox Church after Constantine in the 4th century AD adopted a religious system which was in essence Old Testament, complete with priests, altar, a Christian temple (cathedral), frankincense and a Jewish, synagogue-style worship pattern. The Roman Catholic Church went on to canonize the system. Luther did reform the content of the gospel, but left the outer forms of church remarkably untouched; the Free-Churches freed the system from the State, the Baptists then baptized it, the Quakers dry-cleaned it, the Salvation Army put it into a uniform, the Pentecostals anointed it and the Charismatics renewed it, but until today nobody has really changed the superstructure. It is about time to do just that.

8 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 8 3. The Third Reformation. In rediscovering the gospel of salvation by faith and grace alone, Luther started to reform the Church through a reformation of theology. In the 18th century through movements like the Moravians there was a recovery of a new intimacy with God, which led to a reformation of spirituality, the Second Reformation. Now God is touching the wineskins themselves, initiating a Third Reformation, a reformation of structure. 4. From Church-Houses to house-churches Since New Testament times, there is no such thing as a house of God. At the cost of his life, Stephen reminded unequivocally: God does not live in temples made by human hands. The Church is the people of God. The Church, therefore, was and is at home where people are at home: in ordinary houses. There, the people of God: share their lives in the power of the Holy Spirit, have meatings, that is, they eat when they meet; they often do not even hesitate to sell private property and share material and spiritual blessings, teach each other in real-life situations how to obey God s word dialogue- and not professor-style, pray and prophesy with each other, baptize, lose their face and their ego by confessing their sins, regaining a new corporate identity by experiencing love, acceptance and forgiveness. 5. The church has to become small in order to grow big Most churches of today are simply too big to provide real fellowship. They have too often become fellowships without fellowship. The New Testament Church was a mass of small groups, typically between 10 and 15 people. It grew not upward into big congregations between 20 and 300 people filling a cathedral and making real, mutual communication improbable. Instead, it multiplied sidewards like organic cells once these groups reached around people. Then, if possible, it drew all the Christians together into citywide celebrations, as with Solomon s Temple court in Jerusalem. The traditional congregational church as we know it is, statistically speaking, neither big nor beautiful, but rather a sad compromise, an overgrown housechurch and an under-grown celebration, often missing the dynamics of both.

9 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 9 6. No church is led by a Pastor alone The local church is not lead by a Pastor, but fathered by an Elder, a local person of wisdom and reality. The local house-churches are then networked into a movement by the combination of elders and members of the so-called five-fold ministries (Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Evangelists and Teachers) circulating from house to house, whereby there is a special foundational role to play for the apostolic and prophetic ministries (Eph. 2:20, and 4:11.12). A Pastor (shepherd) is a very necessary part of the whole team, but he cannot fulfill more than a part of the whole task of equipping the saints for the ministry, and has to be complemented synergistically by the other four ministries in order to function properly. 7. The right pieces fitted together in the wrong way In doing a puzzle, we need to have the right original for the pieces, otherwise the final product, the whole picture, turns out wrong, and the individual pieces do not make much sense. This has happened to large parts of the Christian world: we have all the right pieces, but have fitted them together wrong, because of fear, tradition, religious jealousy and a power-and-control mentality. As water is found in three forms ice, water and steam the five ministries mentioned in Eph. 4:11-12, the Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Teachers and Evangelists are also found today, but not always in the right forms and in the right places: they are often frozen to ice in the rigid system of institutionalized Christianity; they sometimes exist as clear water; or they have vanished like steam into the thin air of free-flying ministries and independent churches, accountable to no-one. As it is best to water flowers with the fluid version of water, these five equipping ministries will have to be transformed back into new and at the same time age-old forms, so that the whole spiritual organism can flourish and the individual ministers can find their proper role and place in the whole. That is one more reason why we need to return back to the Maker s original and blueprint for the Church. 8. God does not leave the Church in the hands of bureaucratic clergy No expression of a New Testament church is ever led by just one professional holy man doing the business of communicating with God and then feeding some relatively passive religious consumers Moses-style. Christianity has adopted this method from pagan religions, or at best from the Old Testament. The heavy professionalisation of the church since Constantine has now been a pervasive influence long enough, dividing the people of God artificially into

10 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 10 laity and clergy. According to the New Testament (1 Tim. 2:5), there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. God simply does not bless religious professionals to force themselves inbetween people and God forever. The veil is torn, and God is allowing people to access Himself directly through Jesus Christ, the only Way. To enable the priesthood of all believers, the present system will have to change completely. Bureaucracy is the most dubious of all administrative systems, because it basically asks only two questions: yes or no. There is no room for spontaneity and humanity, no room for real life. This may be OK for politics and companies, but not the Church. God seems to be in the business of delivering His Church from a Babylonian captivity of religious bureaucrats and controlling spirits into the public domain, the hands of ordinary people made extraordinary by God, who, like in the old days, may still smell of fish, perfume and revolution. 9. Return from organized to organic forms of Christianity The Body of Christ is a vivid description of an organic, not an organized, being. Church consists on its local level of a multitude of spiritual families, which are organically related to each other as a network, where the way the pieces are functioning together is an integral part of the message of the whole. What has become a maximum of organization with a minimum of organism, has to be changed into a minimum of organization to allow a maximum of organism. Too much organization has, like a straightjacket, often choked the organism for fear that something might go wrong. Fear is the opposite of faith, and not exactly a Christian virtue. Fear wants to control, faith can trust. Control, therefore, may be good, but trust is better. The Body of Christ is entrusted by God into the hands of steward-minded people with a supernatural charismatic gift to believe God that He is still in control, even if they are not. A development of trust-related regional and national networks, not a new arrangement of political ecumenism is necessary for organic forms of Christianity to reemerge. 10. From worshipping our worship to worshipping God The image of much of contemporary Christianity can be summarized, a bit euphemistically, as holy people coming regularly to a holy place at a holy day at a holy hour to participate in a holy ritual lead by a holy man dressed in holy clothes against a holy fee. Since this regular performance-oriented

11 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 11 enterprise called "worship service" requires a lot of organizational talent and administrative bureaucracy to keep going, formalized and institutionalized patterns developed quickly into rigid traditions. Statistically, a traditional 1-2 hour worship service is very resource-hungry but actually produces very little fruit in terms of discipling people, that is, in changed lives. Economically speaking, it might be a "high input and low output" structure. Traditionally, the desire to worship in the right way has led to much denominationalism, confessionalism and nominalism. This not only ignores that Christians are called to worship in truth and in spirit, not in cathedrals holding songbooks, but also ignores that most of life is informal, and so is Christianity as the Way of Life. Do we need to change from being powerful actors to start acting powerfully? 11. Stop bringing people to church, and start bringing the church to the people The church is changing back from being a Come-structure to being again a Go-structure. As one result, the Church needs to stop trying to bring people into the church, and start bringing the Church to the people. The mission of the Church will never be accomplished just by adding to the existing structure; it will take nothing less than a mushrooming of the church through spontaneous multiplication of itself into areas of the population of the world, where Christ is not yet known. 12. Rediscovering the Lord's Supper to be a real supper with real food Church tradition has managed to celebrate the Lord's Supper in a homeopathic and deeply religious form, characteristically with a few drops of wine, a tasteless cookie and a sad face. However, the Lord's Supper was actually more a substantial supper with a symbolic meaning, than a symbolic supper with a substantial meaning. God is restoring eating back into our meeting. 13. From Denominations to city-wide celebrations Jesus called a universal movement, and what came was a series of religious companies with global chains marketing their special brands of Christianity and competing with each other. Through this branding of Christianity most of Protestantism has, therefore, become politically insignificant and often more concerned with traditional specialties and religious infighting than with developing a collective testimony before the world. Jesus simply never asked

12 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 12 people to organize themselves into denominations. In the early days of the Church, Christians had a dual identity: they were truly His church and vertically converted to God, and then organized themselves according to geography, that is, converting also horizontally to each other on earth. This means not only Christian neighbors organizing themselves into neighborhoodor house-churches, where they share their lives locally, but Christians coming together as a collective identity as much as they can for citywide or regional celebrations expressing the corporateness of the Church of the city or region. Authenticity in the neighborhoods connected with a regional or citywide corporate identity will make the Church not only politically significant and spiritually convincing, but will allow a return to the biblical model of the City-Church. 14. Developing a persecution-proof spirit They crucified Jesus, the Boss of all the Christians. Today, his followers are often more into titles, medals and social respectability, or, worst of all, they remain silent and are not worth being noticed at all. Blessed are you when you are persecuted, says Jesus. Biblical Christianity is a healthy threat to pagan godlessness and sinfulness, a world overcome by greed, materialism, jealousy and any amount of demonic standards of ethics, sex, money and power. Contemporary Christianity in many countries is simply too harmless and polite to be worth persecuting. But as Christians again live out New Testament standards of life and, for example, call sin as sin, conversion or persecution has been, is and will be the natural reaction of the world. Instead of nesting comfortably in temporary zones of religious liberty, Christians will have to prepare to be again discovered as the main culprits against global humanism, the modern slavery of having to have fun and the outright worship of Self, the wrong centre of the universe. That is why Christians will and must feel the repressive tolerance of a world which has lost any absolutes and therefore refuses to recognize and obey its creator God with his absolute standards. Coupled with the growing ideologisation, privatization and spiritualisation of politics and economics, Christians will sooner than most think have their chance to stand happily accused in the company of Jesus. They need to prepare now for the future by developing a persecution-proof spirit and an even more persecution-proof structure. 15. The Church comes home Where is the easiest place, say, for a man to be spiritual? Maybe again, is it hiding behind a big pulpit, dressed up in holy robes, preaching holy words to a faceless crowd and then disappearing into an office? And what is the most

13 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 13 difficult and therefore most meaningful place for a man to be spiritual? At home, in the presence of his wife and children, where everything he does and says is automatically put through a spiritual litmus test against reality, where hypocrisy can be effectively weeded out and authenticity can grow. Much of Christianity has fled the family, often as a place of its own spiritual defeat, and then has organized artificial performances in sacred buildings far from the atmosphere of real life. As God is in the business of recapturing the homes, the church turns back to its roots back to where it came from. It literally comes home, completing the circle of Church history at the end of world history. As Christians of all walks of life, from all denominations and backgrounds, feel a clear echo in their spirit to what God's Spirit is saying to the Church, and start to hear globally in order to act locally, they begin to function again as one body. They stop asking God to bless what they are doing - and start doing what God is blessing. They organize themselves into neighborhood house-churches and meet in regional or citycelebrations. You are invited to become part of this movement and make your own contribution. Maybe your home, too, will become a house that changes the world.

14 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 14 Why and for whom this book was written This booklet is the product of many people in many countries, and draws on the learning experiences of a wide variety of servants of God. Not only have I physically been writing the notes for it over the last 2 years in Colombia, USA, Germany, Switzerland, England, Sudan, Egypt, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Muscat, Dubai, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Korea, China and Mongolia, but I have been able to discuss these issues with numerous Pastors and Missionaries and Christian Leaders. Most important of all, I wanted to listen intently to normal Christians and their dreams and experiences. I am thankful for all those inspiring moments, visits, listening to stories, having discussions, drinking tea. And I am also inspired by a host of valuable books and other materials; they are simply too numerous to mention. Allthough German is the language I grew up with, I have attempted to write this book in English - and it shows! I beg that people whose mother-tongue is English will forgive any liberties I may have taken with their language. Jesus has given us the commission to go and make disciples of all nations. It is the growing conviction of many Christians around the world, that this will only be ever achieved by having a church - the shopping window of God - in walking distance of every person on the globe. The church - the secret and powerful society of the redeemed - must again become the place were people can literally see the Body of Christ, were His glory is revealed in the most practical of all terms - hands on, down to earth, right next door, unable to overlook or ignore, living every day amongst us. The process to move towards the goal of whole nations - countries and people groups and regions - being discipled by a mass dispersion of the presence of Christ has come to be known as Saturation Church Planting, the process which God seems to choose in nation after nation to mobilize all his people to work together towards that ultimate goal. The word saturation means to fill to the brim, to make full of, to reach a critical mass. God is the God of Nations. You will quickly see that planting a few churches here and there is just not enough. What will it take to see whole nations discipled, with millions of inhabitants and tens of thousands of villages, with longstanding nonchristian - or worse - pseudochristian - traditions and customs and formidable spiritual forces of their own, with poverty and urbanization and any conceivable difference of opinions, colors, castes and clans, tribes and language groups? Many have told me, often enough with tears in their eyes, that their nation will not truly change its values and be discipled by anything artificial, by being briefly touched for a fleeting moment by the abbreviated Gospel of a rather short-lived campaign or programme, by an evangelistic Blitzkrieg or even by the type of church that has been there for the last 5, 50 or 500 years. Nothing short of the very presence of the living Christ in every neighborhood and village of every corner of the nation will do. He has come to live amongst us - and stay on. We therefore need to plant and water churchplanting movements that plant and water other churchplanting movements - until there is no space left for anyone to misunderstand, ignore or even escape the presence of Jesus in the form that he has chosen to take, while on Earth - the local church.

15 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 15 This book focuses on the question, what type of church will it take to do just that? And how do we plant those type of churches? It is a vision statement in the sense that it tries to capture and express the visions, hopes and expectations of many Christians around the globe for a New Testament type church that will truly disciple nations - and not only fill them; this also implies a natural tendency to speak in big-picture, broad-stroke language with the inbuilt danger to oversimplify life s complexities and sound almost simplistic at times; and I am painfully aware of that. I trust God will use others better gifted than me to fill in the blanks I have to leave open. It is a manifesto in the sense that it declares a threefold conviction: that without a return to the New Testament simplicity of housechurches; the empowering Five-Fold ministry to spawn a flood of quality housechurches; and the strategic process of saturation church planting as a united effort of the Body of Christ, we will continue to fall short of being obedient to the Great Commission. The number of people alive today - more than 6 billion - is more than all those in history combined. If ever we needed to recover a New Testament church to disciple the nations, now would be a good time. It is a churchplanting manual in the sense that it will explain how to plant housechurches. As every company knows, it is best to develop a working prototype of a product first, and then head for mass production. If we know what type of church we want, we will also know how to plant and multiply it. Why no models? For some good reasons, I have tried to resist the temptation to describe a multitude of models, which could be used as a blueprint for copying. I also have avoided including issues like six easy steps to plant a housechurch-movement, because I believe it is neither easy nor adviseable to take formulas and existing models and make Xeroxcopies of them. One reason is: I simply do not believe in copycat-mentality. It is more important for spiritually significant principles to sink in and to be grasped, then to simply take a 5-step outline and copy it. Instead of importing spiritual success-stories of others I would find it much more natural if we all search for the ways, which God has ordained for out time and our places to put into practice, what we feel he has reveiled to us. I do not want to spare anyone of us this creative tension. Another reason is, that many are looking for a proven truth, a foolproof method and model, a concept which a sufficient number of others have already tried out and tested, bevor they take a leap of faith and go and do likewise. This play it safe - mentality, I would suggest, is a spiritual way of hiding fear which sounds very reasonable, and we may leap, but not really out of faith. The core secret of followers of Christ, men an women alike, to do the works of Jesus is not that they demand academic and sufficient statistical proof before they act, but the faithful and obedient desire to follow Christ s word and do what He said, no matter what, when, where or who has gone before.

16 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 16 What about the existing church structure Nobody lives in a vacuum, and many of us will have grown up in denominational structures or work in areas with an existing church history. We will be unable to turn back the wheel of history alltogether, but nowhere in the Bible are we also challenged to stoically take the Status Quo for granted, but to be perfect as God is perfect. This book is not written to suggest that housechurches are the only possible way of Church. However, it does suggest that if we want to see whole nations discipled according to the biblical command of Jesus, we will not be able to accomplish much without either radically returning back to New Testament principles and dynamics of Church - or making room for others to do so. The focus and perspective of discipling the nations is very different from maintaining a certain church tradition or sitting in the ivory tower of theoretical reflexion. If housechurches are a valid expression of the Church - which I am advocating here - then we need to embrace it at least as one of many valid forms of Church, and see it s potential unfold towards discipling the nations. I believe that God has been blessing the world through the existing Church structures, and has done and is still doing uncounted miracles of transforming peoples lives and doing good in ways too numerous to mention. But even the Church should never settle for less than it has been made for. I believe churches - including housechurches!- come in all grades and shades of human works coupled with the work of God, an ever changing mix of spirit and flesh, as long as we will occupy this earth. But, as it is for us, we are all called to lean as much towards the works of the Spirit as possible, and to root out the works of the flesh, if we can. This is humanly impossible, and let me say it already here: the Church of God is God s invention and humanly not doable or makeable; it cannot be fabricated nor manufactured, but will only emerge as we yield ourselves to God and become His very junior partners and stewards in His work of calling back His creation through His Church unto Himself. But there is hope! God, in His sovereign ways, is able to do the undoable: to make wine out of water, to make donkeys talk and,water flow from a rock, part the sea - and, most astonishing - even use ordinary humans for His divine glory. This book is not advocating for you and me to dream up and paint a perfect and almost romantic picture of Church and admire it from a distance like in a museum, but to get personally involved as a response to what God is calling us to do. In this book, I have made plain what I feel God is calling the Church to be, or to become, and I am willing to be personally involved locally and globally for that task. I must confess that I do feel very inadequate at times, loaded with any amount of my own various Church traditions and many inadequacies and biases. This also means that I am painfully aware that this book is only an introductory and unfinished statement, which I am more than happy to admit. But even the unfinished nature of this book is part of the message: deus semper major, God is always bigger - than we think. Yes, we have seen something, but yes, it is also only a part. But most of all this book is intended to inspire, cheerlead and celebrate those Christians who will be God s instruments of gathering the harvest in this last leg of history. As many prophets tell us, it will be a generation of nobodies, without faces and titles who lead God s movement on Earth to fulfil its calling. They will do it

17 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 17 under persecution or celebrated in talk shows (which one is worse?), under unspeakable difficulties or walking on red carpets, despised or adored, ridiculed or consulted, cheated or honored, scorned or quoted, tortured or pampered, unknown or known, with frequent flyer cards or walking bare foot. In other words, this is a battle cry for ordinary followers of Christ, who, through their humble, self-denying and obedient lives, will be made extraordinary in purpose and power, and therefore flood this earth with housechurches, the presence, knowledge and glory of Christ, like the waters cover the sea.

18 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world The Reinvention of Church Bridging the church gap It is an interesting phenomenon: never in history has there been a phase with more significant and global growth of the Christian Church. Some current statistics indicate that between and churches are planted every week. The worldwide evangelical church has grown from about 150 million in the year 1974 to about 650 million in 1998, and is today, according to C.Peter Wagner and Ralph Winter, the fastest growing minority on earth. And yet, at this time of great excitement - and even triumph in some groups, the level of dissatisfaction and frustration with church as we know it has probably also reached global proportions. We read of many people coming to Christ every day, and we rejoice. But we usually do not hear much of those numbers entering membership rolls of local churches, and even less we hear about the silent exodus of people slipping out almost unnoticed of the back doors of churches again; they were attracted, but not contained; interested, but not inserted into an enveloping fellowship; harvested and cut, but not gathered into the barn; touched, but not transformed; turned to briefly look at The Way, then turned away, disappointed with what they saw. God yes, church no In a research done in the early 90 s in Netherlands, Amsterdam, young people have been asked whether they were interested in God. 100% of them answered yes. Then they were asked whether they are interested in church, 1% said yes, 99% said no. I remember that most Pastors who heard this story used to indicate that something is seriously wrong with those Youth in Amsterdam, since everything - can it be any different - is right with the church. Today I reluctantly like to consider it the other way around. Maybe the Youth of Amsterdam has some lessons to teach the church which we have been rather unwilling to learn. Maybe we have fallen so much in love with our own traditions that we are almost unable to truly hear and feel the world from our safe and holy distance. Non-Baptized Believers Another research conducted nearly a decade ago by Dr.Herbert E. Hoefer, former Director of Gurukul Theological College (Madras, India) reveals that more than 200,000 what Hoefer calls Non Baptized believers in Christ secretly exist in this city of 8 Million. This growing number would call themselves Christians, but do not go to church, for a variety of reasons. One reason they state, however, is that they are attracted to Jesus, but not attracted to the church as they have experienced it. Ask almost anyone who is not yet a Christian what crosses his mind when he hears the word evangelical Church. Chances are, you would not like what you will hear. It is amazing how well, many Christians are able to hide or brush over their own deep

19 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 19 frustration with the church. Look to Jesus, not to the church, they say. And we know deep down that something is desperately wrong with that statement. There is a buzzing activity about the church and missions like never before today. But - also like never before - Pastors are swapping churches, dropping out of ministry or applying for sabbaticals, missionaries are burning out, and many ordinary Christians simply leave their churches without returning back. Countless Christians have told me that after trying this model of church, that recipe of revival, riding this wave and catching the spirit that way, attending this lifechanging seminar and that anointed conference their lives and their churches are still dreadfully the same, and they are prepared to give up or just hold on for dear life. The crisis of Missions is a crisis of the Church I don't like books on missions, says Stephen Gaukroger, President of the Baptist Union of England and Wales, in the foreword to Patrick Johnstones book The Church is bigger than you think. They usually tell me what I already know and then make me feel guilty for not doing more about it! The traditional understanding of missions encourages churches or individual people to go to the missions field, give money or send someone else to go. But many times this leaves a bad aftertaste, because we never know when we have gone, done, spent or sent enough. Patrick Johnstone says it this way: We live in a time when our perception of what constitutes the structures of the Church has been molded by inadequate theology and distorted patterns inherited over the centuries. Few realize the impact of these distortions on congregational life. We soon find out that bashing congregations with a mission challenge or attempting to prick consciences in public meetings bears meager fruit. We find that the church has inherited a mind-set or worldview which has excluded missions altogether. It is no surprise to me that churches who are not built on apostolic and prophetic foundations (Eph. 2:20) have no apostolic and prophetic mind-set. This is to be expected. The crisis of traditional missions is a crisis of the church. If mission is the natural heartbeat of an apostolic church, it is an expression of God's grace manifested in apostolic people, not a church trying to fulfill it's mission quota. We need to take the legalistic whip out of mission, and I suggest we start at the very heart of missions, with our understanding of the church. I suggest that the whip is not only evident in missions, it is at home in the church as a result of a lack of grace and an overdoses of legalism, which often creeps in where the apostolic and prophetic ministry are missing and are being replaced by dutiful teachers, beautiful pastors and daring evangelists. But I intend to point out later that as church is reinvented, mission will be completely revived, too. When the church rejects it's mission, the Church ceases to be the Church, says Donald Miller. But when the church again becomes the church and accepts it's apostolic and prophetic nature, then it can become God's instrument of transforming and discipline neighborhoods and nations. And an individual church can be used by God, in the spirit of global partnership, to pour it's oil on other peoples

20 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 20 fire, so that the light increases and the world may see whom it has overlooked for all too long: Jesus Christ. The Church-gap Many Pastors know and even say that the church we preach about is very different from the church we preach to. That s the very reason why we preach. If even pastors admit that, what about new Christians? In the days of coffee bar evangelism, says English Church-planter Terry Virgo, there were conferences held on how to bridge the awful gulf between the coffee bar and the church. It was meant for new Christians to help them to cope with dead, irrelevant, formal church services. Once they were told that this cold, unchanging monotony was the people of God enjoying abundant life. Some, therefore, even suggested a half-way house, where people could be prepared for church life. In the original days of Willowcreek Community Church in Chicago, which has seeker-oriented worship services - worship experiences tailor-made for those seeking God, where not-yet believers are specifically made welcome and given a comfortable, nonembarrassing and safe place for a dangerous message, they were well aware of the church-gap, the fascination of people with the person of Jesus, and the dissatisfaction of many with the local church. At that time, however humorously, they suggested a sevenfold strategy of Evangelism: 1. Spend quality time with Non- Christians; 2. Protect them from the church. 3. Witness to those new friends about Jesus Christ. 4. Protect them from the church. 5. Lead them to Christ. 6. Protect them from the church. 7. When they have matured a bit and are ready even for a culture shock, introduce them to the church for the first time. Who follows up whom? A missionary told me about a church of about 200 attenders in Europe which wanted to invite Non-christians for a special event service. With the help of a lot of advertising, 50 new people attended this special event. Of course, very few of them actually came back to church. But we are following them up, he said. I was amazed. If 50 non-believers attend a church service and go away fairly indifferent and not exactly thrilled with this experience, why is it that the church does not bear the consequences? Should it not be on its own knees trying to find out what has obviously desperately gone wrong with itself, that so many people can come in touch with it - and go rather untouched? Could it be that the church would much rather have to follow-up itself, than bothering unimpressed and indifferent one-time visitors with spiritual sales-techniques? After years of post-constantine Christendom, can we afford to still discuss how to change the world without being ready to change ourselves? Maybe we all need to follow the advise of Rick Warren in his book The

21 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 21 Purpose driven church, to stop asking God to bless what we are doing, and start doing what he is blessing. The Third Reformation German Church Growth researcher Christian A. Schwarz suggests that we are in the era of the Third Reformation. The first reformation happened in the 16 th century, when Martin Luther rediscovered the core essence of the Gospel: salvation by faith, the centrality of importance of grace and scripture. It was a reformation of theology. The second reformation occurred in the 18 th century at the time of the Moravian and later the Wesleyan movements, where personal intimacy with Christ was rediscovered. It was, he says, a reformation of spirituality, which, born on passionate knees in front of a loving and personal Savior, gave birth to a whole new era of enthusiastic missions and evangelism. However, all of this was still very much pouring new wine into old wineskins, and sewing new patches onto old cloth. The Roman Catholic Church and Mass System was very close to the Old Testament temple-centred worship patterns, complete with frankincense, priests, sections for the lay people and clerics, and an altar. Luther did reform the content of the Gospel, but did not change the basic structure of the worship service. This reformed-roman-catholic-jewish meeting-pattern was baptized by Baptists, anointed by Pentecostals, misused by Cults, renewed by Charismatic Christians, put into uniform by the Salvation Army, dry-cleaned by Quakers - but was never really radically changed. The services were still essentially performances, audience-oriented masses, usually formal and liturgical religious events, where many spectators and consumers observe a few very involved religious specialists performing for them and with them. The third and last part of the Reformation is, therefore, a reformation of structure. It is not suggesting to make a few cosmetic changes or alterations here and there, but to build according to New Testament patterns altogether. If that means that we have to start all over again, then this is exactly what it means, and this will be what it will take. Let me try to say this with a few illustrations and pictures: Large cars during the Oil Crisis During the oil crisis in the 70s it was fairly difficult to sell large cars, because petrol was so costly. Carmakers were scratching their heads, looking at the heap of unsold cars in their parking lots. This does remind me sometimes of the situation of the churches in a number of nations. Is the model of church we are offering simply too costly, too big? Does the market require another product? Clogged assembly line Along a similar line, I would liken the situation of churchplanting in a number of nations with a clogged assembly line. The product (new church) seems to be

22 Wolfgang Simson Houses that change the world 22 extremely hard to sell and sits figuratively on an assembly line clogging it up for lack of excited customers who want to buy that product. Result: The system shuts down, the work inches forward, people become more and more frustrated. Could it be that we have become specialists in reproducing assembly lines, but have failed to spend enough time in examining our prototype product? Solving the Puzzle Imagine a young boy, unwrapping a new puzzle and immediately trying to put together the pieces. He pulls out a piece of cardboard from the puzzle box, depicting a red race car (he loves red race cars!). All excited about this new toy, he tries to assemble the pieces according to the red race car blue print. But somehow or other the pieces do not seem to fit as they should. He manages to bend them and tear off an edge here and there in order to make them fit with a little convincing force, but something seems to be very wrong. Finally his father comes to his rescue. Dad immediately spots the problem, takes the beautiful cardboard with the red race car on it - and turns it around. And lo and behold, on the other side is a beautiful tree, the original. The red race car was only the advertisement for another puzzle of the company! The boy sighed with relief, and tried to put together the pieces according to the new original - and within minutes he was done. What was wrong before? He had all the right pieces, but the wrong original. He had unquestionable and honest motives, but quite simply the wrong blue print. Spiritual Xerox-machines Could it be that this is, in short, the situation of a large part of Christendom today? We have all the right pieces. The word of God; People; houses; prayer; motivation; money. But could it be that we put them all together according to a wrong original? Our very own beloved red race car? Has the unthinkable happened that someone sinister has cunningly slipped us an impractical blueprint? And could it be that here we stand, transfixed in front of our spiritual Xerox-copy machines (translate bible schools, publishing houses, seminaries or leadership-producing programs), and keep hitting that green button which says Copy and wait for it to make copies of what we are convinced to be a biblical, canonized, unquestionable Bible- and history proven first-hand original. I can imagine Satan, the enemy of the Church, having no problem with even the most frantic evangelistic or mission activities and programs - as long as it is all about making copies of red race cars, of a pattern of Church which is not seriously endangering his satanic claims on mankind. Maybe it is time for us to stop scratching the surface of humanity and allow God to re-invent and recreate Church in all of us. It might start with us re-examining our blueprints and turning around our originals.

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